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Increased Campus Interaction:In order to facilitate and be a part of more on-campus conversations, we have created two new E-Board positions titled Community Chairs! They will organise lectures, events, and the biannual The Wellesley Review Release Party.(Pssst! If that sounds like fun to you, keep an eye out for application information!)

Increased Social Media Presence:In order to increase our engagement with social media and our supporters, we have decided to have two Publicity Chairs rather than one. The Publicity Chairs will post regular updates to our Facebook page and Instagram. Additionally, beginning in Fall 2018, our E-Board members will post one blog update to this website every Sunday.

Junior Positions:We want to encourage all Wellesley students to feel comfortable trying new things, and so we are introducing two new positions – Junior Layout Editor and Junior Treasurer!
Students in these positions will have the opportunity to learn amazing new skills from trained, experienced Layout Editors and Treasurers so they can feel confident applying for Senior positions layer!

NaPoWriMo:
Starting in Spring 2019, we will be posting all NaPoWriMo blog posts to this main website under the tag ‘NaPoWriMo’ instead of to our peripheral NaPoWriMo site, which will stay up as an archive.

Please contact us at thewellesleyreview@gmail.com with all your questions, comments, and suggestions.

We skip the diary this time, start meditating right away. As soon as I’m settled on the couch, Dr. Khan pulls out her stopwatch, tells me to take a couple deep breaths before we begin. This is really not a good day for meditation: I have an English paper due tomorrow, on animalism in Othello, and this morning I had begged Mom to let me skip my appointment. “Absolutely not,” she’d said, pouring orange juice into my glass. “You’ll have time to work afterward. And anyway, why worry? Your English grade’s high enough.”

I try. I do! I sit there and I breathe and I stare at the swirly star pattern I always see when my eyes are closed. I feel my chest rise and fall, rise and fall. I search for something spiritual in my dry lips, in the slow sucking of my breath.

But my mind is escaping me, running amok like a kid after too many Hershey’s Kisses. I hear Dr. Khan say, “Inhale, quiet your mind; exhale, release your tension” again, but my brain is calculating exactly how long it will take to finish my paper if I have six pages left and there are 250 words per page and I write 500 words per hour, maybe 600 if I push myself. And by then I know I’m a goner.

I open my eyes. I open my mouth too, to tell Dr. Khan that I screwed up, that I can’t do it anymore. But before I can force the words out, I notice something: Dr. Khan is meditating too! Her lips are parted slightly, her hands resting on her thighs, her eyes squeezed shut like the women I see at synagogue. She keeps muttering, “Inhale, quiet your mind; exhale, release your tension”—more to herself, I realize now, than to me.

It takes me a moment to register the significance of this discovery. Then I feel it, an idea burgeoning, unraveling in the pit of my stomach. I try to resist. I do! But before you can say “Shakespeare,” I’m removing Othello from my backpack, flipping through the pages, perusing my annotations. I glance up; Dr. Khan is in another world, still repeating that mantra. I find a pencil on the table beside me, start to draft sentences on the inside cover.

In Othello, William Shakespeare juxtaposes humans and beasts to convey that, despite the pretenses of civilized society, humans share many fundamental traits with animals.**

“Inhale, quiet your mind; exhale, release your tension.”

From the outset, the comparison of jealousy to a “green-eyed monster” reflects a non-human component to jealousy, for by definition monsters are not human—a fact that contributes to people’s fear of them.**

“Inhale, quiet your mind; exhale, release your tension.”

Further, by comparing Othello and Desdemona’s lovemaking to the purely physical reproduction of animals, Iago implies that beneath societal customs and niceties humans share many primordial instincts with the rest of the animal kingdom.**

“Inhale, quiet your mind; exhale, release your—”

A bell goes off, high-pitched and abrupt, like the chirping of a bird. Dr. Khan’s stopwatch. I move quickly—my fingers are already struggling with the zipper on my backpack when I hear her say, voice measured, “Is that what I think it is, Joanne?”

First day, first historical monument of Rome to visit. I stood there, motionless and at a loss of words. All I could do was stare. Stare at the architectural beauty which had a gaze several hundred years old and an aura even older. It had sustained the eye of many – more than one could ever count and I was just one of those myriad puny humans who came from around the world to admire it. My novels had come to life and for the first time, I was physically there, walking towards the entrance, ready to seep myself in a history book, dissolving into the first chapter.

I’d walked in with a positive attitude and a refreshed mind but naturally, as always, something unpleasant was bound to happen. Yes, we had to take a tour guide. Yes, Rome was one of my dream destinations. But why am I then supposed to know everything? I had always been interested in history and picked up bits of information wherever I stumbled upon them perchance – books, television, movies…everywhere! Be that as it may, I intentionally never went on the Internet and researched about the places I’ll be visiting in detail. Why? I want to learn. I want to learn while being there in person so that I could fully feel it all and absorb it all. But just because I had always been fascinated with Roman mythology and history didn’t mean I was a walking talking Roman encyclopedia!

“What is this sculpture, Udita? Which God, which king? What is it made of? Why is it like this?”

“You have an interest in Roman history, right? Tell us, then. Why is this monument built like this? Why is its structure like this?”

“You don’t know this? And you claim to be interested? What a disgrace!”

These were just a few repetitive taunts I had the privilege to hear from my family, especially my brother. A twelve year old freak – that is what he was, and with those tangled strands – mischief was written on his face, clearly shown in that evil triumphant grin he flashed at me from time to time. Since that day in the snow in Switzerland, his behavior had completely turned around. He was like a monkey out of its cage! Annoying me had become his favourite hobby and was being mastered by him to perfection in Rome. Apparently, my interest had slowly transformed into a subject of mockery.

It was discouraging but I tried not to let it overpower me and remove the reason why I was in this city. I was here to learn and immerse myself in what I loved. No matter what my obnoxious little brother said, I saw every part of this massive Roman amphitheater, listening, reading and learning.

“Are you done roaming around this monument? It’s time to go for shopping now, ” my parents had said to me from time to time, who were unconvinced of my desire to learn – they thought I was posturing it and their indifferent attitude towards the city I adored further strengthened their belief. I sighed to my myself in disgust.

“No,” I said.

I only had two days in my grasp. Tomorrow would be the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain. Today, I took myself to one of the most famous Piazzas – Piazza Venezia. And of course, my family had to come along, with their eyes open, buried in their phones. But I was determined to see not with the eye, but with the mind.

Tall and grand. Not massive, but grand. Pillars decorated the upper half, an evident symbol of ancient architecture. Below it were carved sculptures depicting…various scenes from battle, I believe? People filled the entire space beneath this magnificent monument, milling about like a swarm of bees, the mindless chatter getting lost amongst itself. However, the most special quality of this Piazza, which I got to learn, was what appealed to me the most – those sculptures weren’t scenes of battle. They were allegory, each with a hidden meaning, symbolizing something.The entire monument was an extended metaphor.

The blazing gleam of excitement in me could not be matched. I looked at my parents who overcome with exhaustion and heat. My little brother’s head rested in mum’s lap as she tried to calm the restlessness inside him because of the heat. Gradually, a slight smile took its place on my face and I shrugged my shoulders. I turned around and headed towards the flight of steps leading to the pale white emblem of grandeur, more ready than ever to plunge into the world of the past on my own.

Someday, I will return and see everything. Explore everything. Learn everything.

Hello! My name is Alyssa Robins, and I am the Senator for the Wellesley Review, as well as a general member on the prose and poetry boards. I am a first-year interested in studying English, creative writing, studio art, and astronomy, along with nearly everything else!

I first learned about the Wellesley Review while visiting campus in my sophomore year of high school, and it is a dream come true to be on the E-Board. I can’t wait to share our writers’ voices with the student body!

Outside of the Review, I am a copyeditor for the Wellesley News, a apprentice of the Guild of Carillonneurs, on the Dorm Crew, Elevator Elf for my dorm (McAfee!), involved with the Unitarian Universalist community on campus, and a member of the Student Organizations and Appointments Committee (SOAC).